"Operations in the Chesapeake," he wrote, "are attended with great risk unless we are sure of a permanent superiority at sea.

I tremble for the fatal consequences that may ensue." For Cornwallis, taking the matter into his own hands, had marched from Wilmington on the 25th of April, 1781, joining the British already at Petersburg on the 20th of May.

The forces thus united numbered seven thousand men.

Driven back from the open country of South Carolina into Charleston, there now remained two centres of British power,--at New York and in the Chesapeake.

With New Jersey and Pennsylvania in the hands of the Americans, communication between the two depended wholly upon the sea.
Despite his unfavorable criticism of Cornwallis's action, Clinton had himself already risked a large detachment in the Chesapeake.